


Brave Face

by givemeunicorns



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Mighty Nein as Family, Past Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:02:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/givemeunicorns/pseuds/givemeunicorns
Summary: Be brave BrenAnd he is, until the screaming starts.~~~~Caleb struggles in the face of his past. But this time, he's not alone.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 174





	Brave Face

_Be brave Bren_

He's fifteen and the furthest from home he's even been. His father holds his shoulders, his mother holds his hand. She's been crying. Father doesn't cry but it's a close thing. Bren doesn't want to let them go. It's the opportunity of a life time, a chance to live a life that will allow him to take care of them all. He swallows back tears. It's only a few years. You'll make so many friends mother tells him. You'll learn so much. Father touches his face. He's so proud.

_Be brave Bren_

He's sixteen and Astrid strokes his hair while he screams. The pain in his arms sets his bones on fire. Eodwulf is there, holding his while he writhes, the crystals digging deeper into his flesh, like weevils. They're setting him alight, the fire eating him up from the inside. He can't contain it. He can't control it. It's burning him alive.

_Be brave Bren_

Master Ikithon's tone is not unkind as Bren comes out to greet him. His teacher stands with Astrid and Eodwulf at his side. He knows what he has to do. Traitors can not be tolerate. A cancer must be cut out, lest it poison the body. Together, the students push a cart in front of the door. The fingers of flam lick across his palms, he can call the fire as easily as he can call breath in his lungs.

_Be brave Bren_

And he is, until the screaming starts

_Be brave Bren_

He whispers to himself, clutching his makeshift weapon, waiting for the guard to turn, before he slams the bit of wood into the man's neck, drags his body to the ground. The world is a wide a terrifying place. One he hasn't seen in many years....

_Be brave Bren_

His old teacher's voice whispers in his head. He feels the eyes on him, the shuttering catch of his breath as he feels the ghosts of a blade cut into his skin.The king is speaking and he know he should listen but he can't. His body is thrumming, the phantom of fire heating his face, the long gone crystals burrowing into his skin. The invisible hand of his past squeezes tighter, drives the breath out of his lungs. The king waves his hands, people are talking, moving, and he knows he should move too but he can't. The urge to run isn't stronger the stone cold heaviness in his muscles. Trent Ikithon is watching him, holding him like a spider in a web, ready to devour.

Then all at once the spell was broken, not by magic, but by a head of blue curls and horns. Jester stands between him and Ikithon, dainty hands out a little at her sides, as though she could stop the man from passing. She's never believed him to be the coward he knows he is, even now. Beau steps in beside her, fists clenched, back straight, chin tilted up in the pointed way she does, as if asking the world if it's looking for a fight. He can hear the soft rustle of fabric as Caducues steps in closer behind him, warm and solid at his back, a hand resting on his shoulder, the smell of damp fur and sweet earth falling over him in the Firbolg's shadow. Caducues, who was stabbed in the back by a murdering specter not a day ago, now guarding Caleb's and the symbolism of is far from lost, even in the haze of wizard's fear. Fjord flanks him on one side, his fingers loose, ready to call the Star Razor in the King's hall, if that's what it comes to; reckless man. Yasha moves in closer on his other side, arms crossed over her chest and face hard, facing down his personal hell like she hadn't just crawled out of her own just hours before. She wouldn't, he realizes quite suddenly, even know why he is so afraid, but she senses it and she moves in to protect him anyway. A power sparks off of her, a rage he can almost feel through the cold creeping into his veins. A hand slips into his, slim and familiar with too many joints. Goblin fingers. Nott is staring at Ikithon between the gap of Beau and Jester, mouth full of sharp crooked teeth barred in a feral hiss. Her other hand slides beneath her cloak, reaching for her dagger, or maybe her gun. Between one breath and the next, he's surrounded, a wall of bodies between him and the past. Bloody and beat to hell, tapped of spells, teetering on the knife's edge of treason as it is, and here they are, beside him, ready for a fight, if that's what it comes to.

They are all that's holding him together, a cage that keeps him bolting, from running as far and fast as he can. If they move now, he'll shatter apart. His eyes flicker to the eye on Beau's neck, desperate for any where to look that doesn't remind him blood and flame. The eye on the back of her neck seems to star back at him, unblinking, all knowing.

 _They'll be time for that later,_ whispers a half forgotten voice in his head, the phantom of hands on his face, a friend lost before his time. 

He forces himself to take a breath, so deep it hurts. There will be time to fall apart later, when a war and the fate of the world doesn't rest on the lot of them, bone tired and beat to shit as they are. But the monster has seen them now, put names to faces, and pulled them into the path of something bigger and darker. Later, he will unpack the fear and the pain. Later he will mourn the past. But now, his friends need Caleb. Not Bren, or anyone else he's been over the years. Caleb. Now Caleb must be brave, for his family, if not for himself.


End file.
